by Kent Winter
Vice President of Sales - EMEAA
Back in the early 1990’s, I moved to Europe and one of the biggest expenses was International Long Distance. At the time, European Carriers were much more expensive than the still very expensive U.S. Carriers. So, simple Callback services were developed to take advantage of the Arbitrage.
As markets opened and competition pushed prices down, Callback services disappeared. Prepaid Cards and then Prefixed Long Distance services were popular services sold by entrepreneurs as they pushed the price of Long Distance down.
VoIP and Skype have helped push prices down further and made making money on Long Distance harder as margins and Arbitrage go closer to zero.
But telecommunications’ entrepreneurs are a special sort. Where there is Arbitrage, there is a way… and Roaming rates seem to be the next victim.
And while Global Operators seem to have been successful at getting device manufactures to remove their open VoIP and WiFi capabilities (the Nokia E71 for example) from default (and operator supported) configurations, there are perhaps easier ways to make cheap calls while roaming.
Enter… Callback
That’s right, Callback is on the comeback. USSD Callback is suddenly the most (albeit quietly) requested about application out there. Operators have a tough time blocking USSD, so USSD Callback might finally provide a solution for consumers stuck paying too much for Global Roaming.
… Stay tuned!
